This^^^^ this is my biggest problem with my coach. She will kill us if we miss for something like that, but if she or her daughter (who is conveniently the captain of our squad) have something to do.. Then by all means cancel practice!
I agree with you when a coach has a child on a team that there can be special treatment; but by the same token, I think the coach's kid is held to a higher standard because of the familial relationship. As for the tendancy of favoritism in cheerleading, it used to be that way but it seems that schools are getting smarter about cheer tryouts. Most of the schools in our area hire outside judges for tryouts and neither the coaches nor the administration have any influence over the outcome. Even in captain tryouts, the coaches portion of the tryout score is 20%. There is nothing that a parent or staff member can do to influence the outcome, unless they file a grievance which has happened before. But for the most part, cheer tryouts are as fair as they can be at our school.
I would have your parent(s) request a meeting with the coach and one of the administrators asking for an explanation. It is only fair to ask what you could "improve" on. I scheduled a meeting with my youngest CP's coach and the head coach when she didn't make captain because she was more qualified than the 2 girls that made captain and co-captain. She had been captain of pep squad in 7th and cheer captain in 8th grade. Neither of them had any leadership experience. While they only showed me my CP's panel interview scores, they told me that her score was slightly lower than the other two which is why they made and she didn't.
It sounds like in your situation there is some shadiness going on, so my comment isn't directed towards your situation. There seems to be a lack of proper coaching at your school.
While I completely agree with you in theory, in practice, high school cheer tryouts are too emotionally charged. High school cheer in Texas is a huge deal. There are schools where the coach has complete autonomy and it works for them. But it's too politically charged at the bigger schools, especially if they have successful sports programs. As for the 90% of those outside judge tryouts being rigged, I am not sure how that would happen. The school contracts with an outside company to hire 3 random judges and the candidates where numbers during tryouts, so I don't know how they could be rigged. Even with this unbiased process there are still grievances that are filed by the parents of the girls that don't make the squad. I am thankful that our school hires outside judges because they are scoring the candidates on skills alone and not whether Susie's mom is best friends with the coach's cousin's sorority sister.
If a coach wants the best possible team then no. If you run a competitive program and don't chose the best then you are setting yourself up for failure. Maybe I'm the minority, but I don't care who you are and how long I've known you, if someone else is better for the job then they get it. I have and do cut returners or move them to a lower squad if that is what is needed.
Should have mentioned that there are 4 of us coaches that serve as judges, and our process and scoresheets are very detailed. Tryouts are also open, so parents are pretty well aware of how there daughter compares to the others trying out. We don't just come into clinic and say you, you, and you; everyone else go home.
